[Top Ecommerce Series] Unveiling E-Commerce’s Best Kept Secrets With Aaron Conant of BWG Connect

Aaron Conant is Co-founder and Chief Digital Strategist at BWG Connect, a leading platform for executive strategy and networking sessions. He is an e-commerce expert with over a decade of experience in digital commerce, providing advisory services to brands on Amazon sales strategies, retail media, direct consumer platform selection, and SEO. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of over 125,000 senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events annually.

Before starting BWG Connect, Aaron was the Head of eCommerce Sales and Business Development at Perrigo and a research scientist at Pfizer. He is also the host of the Digital Deep Dive Podcast.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [05:56] Aaron Conant shares valuable e-commerce networking opportunities at BWG Connect
• [09:34] The innovative business model of BWG Connect and its unique approach to event sponsorship
• [12:16] Emerging trends and highly-requested webinar topics in the e-commerce space
• [17:24] The key concerns and pain points currently facing e-commerce brands
• [19:58] Aaron uncovers missed opportunities and low-hanging fruit for e-commerce growth
• [24:36] Recommendations on cutting-edge tools and service providers that drive industry success
• [27:29] How Aaron’s career transitioned from chemistry to digital strategy
• [33:06] Conferences and networking events for e-commerce brands
• [39:35] The curated and targeted approach to BWG Connect’s networking dinners

In this episode…

Are you struggling to find profitability in today’s saturated e-commerce market? With the constant evolution, rising advertising costs, and the increasing complexity of online retail, businesses are struggling to keep up. But what if there’s a way to harness the collective knowledge of industry leaders and cutting-edge tools to skyrocket your success?

Aaron Conant, an expert in the e-commerce space, offers a deep dive into his experiences and the solutions to many e-commerce roadblocks. He shares how he pivoted from being a chemist to leading one of the most influential e-commerce networks, emphasizing how a love for experiments and a data-driven mindset fuelled his success. Aaron dispenses advice on how brands can increase profitability and seize underutilized opportunities in online spaces by utilizing forward-thinking tools and strategies.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Aaron Conant, Co-founder and Chief Digital Strategist at BWG Connect, about fostering collaborative learning and growing e-commerce entities. Aaron shares the valuable e-commerce networking opportunities at BWG Connect, its business model and approach to event sponsorship, the key concerns and pain points currently facing e-commerce brands, and the missed opportunities and low-hanging fruit for e-commerce growth.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Aaron Conant on LinkedIn
• BWG Strategy
• The Digital Deep Dive Podcast

Special Mention(s):

• BWG Strategy
• Bill Williams on LinkedIn
• Shoptalk
• The Lead
• CommerceNext

Related episode(s):

• “Amazon FBA Tips From An Amazon Insider with James Thomson of MarketplaceAccelerator” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Affecting Amazon Sellers” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One Question] The Power of Business Systems For eCommerce Sellers with James Thomson, Founder of Marketplace Accelerator” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “From Custom Projects to an Ecommerce Platform with Jay Lagarde Founder of Ecomm Engine” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One Question] Ecommerce Tools with Jay Lagarde Founder of Ecomm Engine” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Power of Affiliate Marketing With David Katz” on The Digital Deep Dive Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “Build a business around something you love, because then you don’t mind doing it every day.”
• “E-commerce is one big experiment — nobody knows the outcome.”
• “Do business with people you like and love.”
• “You don’t win them all, but every time the experiment failed, I learned something.”
• “Networking is key — build your own personal board of advisors.”

Action Steps:

1. Foster authentic connections by networking with other industry professionals at targeted events: Personal relationships facilitate knowledge exchange.
2. Continuously experiment with e-commerce strategies and learn from failures: Ongoing improvement is critical for success in the unpredictable digital landscape.
3. Utilize AI-driven tools for marketing and operational efficiency in e-commerce: Address challenges of limited time and resources by incorporating AI tools.
4. Explore underutilized marketplaces and opportunities such as Walmart for online sales: Diversifying revenue streams reaches new customer segments.
5. Stay informed on the latest trends and resources within the e-commerce space: Staying updated ensures that businesses can adapt and stay competitive.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:15 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have Aaron Conant of BWG Connect. Aaron, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Since this is part of the top e-commerce series, we have to talk about James Thompson. James Thompson is actually how we met and we did an episode I don’t remember Aaron did James. He’s one of like this people who started the Amazon Seller Program or something like that, is that, right?

Aaron Conant 1:02 

Yes, well, I don’t know about that. I just, I talked to a lot of brands, and I’m always asking them, hey, who are the influential people that are out there? And James Thompson came up so often that it was just a connection I ended up having to make and just in those conversations. And you can bounce any idea off of James you want in the digital space, especially around Amazon. And then one of those actually, was, he was mentioning, hey, you should do a podcast. And I was like, I have no idea how to do a podcast. And he’s like, I have exactly the people that you need to talk to. And that’s, I think, how we originally got connected, right? Because then we met up, you remember, IRCE, you had set up in that booth right in the middle of it all.

Jeremy Weisz 1:42 

We did a full podcast for the conference and everything. And yeah, so James, he also started Prosper Show. They had a successful agency. Johansen also his partner in Prosper Show. And you probably know, eyn Weiner and Chad Rubin, all the kind of start they all in the e-commerce space and started Prosper way back when, which then ended up selling to a publicly traded company, actually.

Aaron Conant 2:12 

Yeah, and I just got a note the other day. I think Matt Snyder, I don’t know if you know, he’s at Brands Excel. He’s a cool Amazon agency. I think he just sent me a call for speakers. So it’s crazy how far that show has come. It’s awesome, though.

Jeremy Weisz 2:27 

So check that episode out with James. We geek out on e-commerce, and we’re going to get into some of the fun. I mean, Aaron is, I don’t know, one of the most connected people in e-commerce, with all of the brands and companies that he chats with. I don’t know. I think I look somewhere you chat like 30 to 40 a week or something, and we’ve had some interesting ones on. I’ve used some ones in the past. So we’ll I want to hear what some of Aaron’s favorite, it’s like your favorite kids, it depends on the day. But some of the favorite tools out there, I had Jay Lagarde, who started eComm engine. I’ve used his for feedback five for emails and things like that. But check those out on inspiredinsider.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships, partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. Right?

We are an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. That’s what Aaron was talking about. And James is like, you want to start this. Don’t worry, you just have the conversations, build relationships, create amazing content, and run your business and let us do everything else. For me, Aaron, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I have found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I’m super excited to introduce Aaron Conant. He’s co-founder and chief digital strategist at BWG Connect. They’re a network and knowledge-sharing community of digital executives who collectively learn from each other via these one on one conversations, webinars, in-person, events across the country. I think, between now and the end of the year, they have over 30 events planned, which is incredible. You can check that out. If you go to bwgstrategy.com there’s a and the navigation, BWG Connect button, or you can go right to backslash BWG-events, and you can see what they have coming up. And they’re actually free. So check them out. They’re advising over 200 brands each year on digital strategy and moderating over 100 events. So he really has a bird’s eye view, and you look at it of the newest trends, strategies, pain points, and also the partners that are shaping the growth across the whole digital and retail landscape. So Aaron, thanks for joining me.

Aaron Conant 2:55 

Yeah, for sure, my friend, it’s gonna be fun. I can’t wait for the conversation and just the quick note, the intro around Rise25 and the ability to put out a podcast is that easy. Everybody, it’s literally they make it that easy. They’re all around. Great people, fantastic to work with, and it’s as easy as you recording a Zoom, meeting with somebody and shooting it over to them. So anyways, thanks Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 5:15 

Appreciate that. Yeah. So just start off and just talk a little bit about BWG Connect and what you do. I gave a brief overview, but give us a little bit more detail.

Aaron Conant 5:56 

I’ll give you, I’ll start with the background is, I was on the brand side in corporate America, this is, I don’t know, 10, 12, years ago, really, getting everything off the ground, from Amazon direct to consumer B2B, looking at, we acquired a company in the EU, Mega Pharma, helping those teams out understand Amazon EU, a little bit of time in China, with Tmall Global. And what I quickly found is that you, the teams are so small and there’s such a limited knowledge base within companies as a whole, I was struggling to find people to talk to. Of course, we go to IRC, now I think it’s RICE, you go to the shop talks. You go to prosper. You could get a lot of sales pitches, and I didn’t want those. I had already kind of stubbed my toe on an integrator, web dev team. I was trying to find an Amazon agency. I wanted to talk to brands.

I wanted to have those conversations, who’s working for you and who’s not. Are there pain points? Are there things I should be thinking about that I haven’t even thought about yet, that you have, and maybe you stubbed your toe and you could help me out. So I ran into a guy, Bill Williams. It’s the BW in the BWG. He already had a massive group that was doing primary research for buy side of the market financial institutions. And one of the sectors he was covering was e-commerce. And so I happened to meet in some of those groups, these different brands, and I pitched him a crazy idea that, hey, how about we take a subgroup, a subset of these brands that they’re talking and give them the opportunity to intermingle for free, whenever they want, it, on whatever topics they wanted. And then, from that, we could end up finding out, hey, who’s the best at anything, who’s the best Amazon agency, who’s the best web dev team, who’s the best at paid search and social, and we could use them as sponsors for different events where there’s no sales pitches, there’s no presentations, and it’s just this opportunity to ask the smartest people selected by the group of brands.

And that was kicked off seven years ago. He said, quit your job. Let’s do it. And so I did that was, yeah, July of 2017 and here we are, seven years later. So I still spend the majority of my time I try to talk to 20 to 30 brands a week, up every vertical, of every size. There are no restrictions around hey, what are your biggest pain points? What are you solving for? And then who’s helping you do it? And what we have is within the most relevant topics with the best possible service providers around again, I’m not vetting them out. The thousands of brands of the network aren’t vetting them out. And yeah, we’ll do about 100 dinners this year across the US, a lot of them at big upcoming shows, the shop talks or the details or the prospers. But we’ll also do a couple 100 webinars. So again, 100% free to brands, and they get as many connections as they want. So that’s kind of long-winded.

Jeremy Weisz 9:05 

No, we’re looking, if you’re listening to the audio version, you can see we are on the you can see BWGstrategy.com/bwg-events. And you can see all the upcoming events. So if you’re in e-commerce and you’re going to one of these shows, or you want to check out their webinars, you can go on this page and you can see what’s going on, and you can see all events are free for industry professionals, no sales pitches. Talk about the business model a little bit.

Aaron Conant 9:34 

Yeah. So the business model is we primarily monetize events as a whole, so anybody that is a sponsor comes vetted out from the brands in the network, where you get pinged all the time by the small little startups that just want to get in front of people. And the reality is we can’t do any of these events unless you’ve been vetted out by the network and by the network. And by the network, I’m not talking about me or my team. It’s literally by the brands. Again, that’s everybody from startup, fortune 100, up every vertical, food, fashion, CPG, whatever, beauty. And so what we’re able to do then is really hone in on hey, who’s the best for Walmart PDP excellence? Now there might be five best people out there, right?

This one that’s upcoming Walmart PDP that’s later on today actually is the 10th today is with cell cord. Michael Leber and his team. I got connected with him through brands, yeah, you know Michael, yeah. And I got connected with him from David Katz, who’s at Archer affiliates, who was on the brand side and now has launched his own affiliate program specifically for a third party on Amazon. And so yeah, Michael. I’ll be chatting with him for an hour later on today. Around these are, like, the cool things that pop up, right? Is asking brands, like, what’s bothering you? Like, hey, we need an alternative to Amazon. But Walmart can’t quite figure it out. Well, if you talk to like Michael, he’s like, yeah, that’s brands.

Jeremy Weisz 11:11 

Michael is a smart dude. When I met him, I think he was really young, running a really successful Amazon brand itself. So yeah, he knows the stuff.

Aaron Conant 11:23 

Yeah. If you talk to him about Walmart, he’s like, hey, everybody spends all their time, effort money fine-tuning everything for an Amazon strategy. And then when they get to Walmart, they grab all that and they dump it on Walmart. And it doesn’t work. So he’s like, spend as much time, effort money that you’re doing on Amazon on Walmart, you’ll get a lot better results. So, it’s cool stuff like that that we’re trying to tackle and help brands out with.

Jeremy Weisz 11:48 

You did an actual, Aaron, a really good podcast episode, actually, with David Katz, which I listened to about affiliates. You can see here, obviously, they have a podcast. You should check it out The Digital Deep Dive with Aaron Conant. You could find that also right through here in The Digital Deep Dive area, where it says BWG Connect. Talk about, it was really kind of a, I don’t know, low-hanging fruit market with it, as far as affiliates go.

Aaron Conant 12:16 

Yeah. I mean, in this case, with David, he came from the brand side. And there’s affiliate networks everywhere. We’re seeing a real drop off in the influencer side, where, hey, I’m going to pay you 20 grand up front, and you’re going to talk about my product, and hopefully I get sales. And, by the way, tomorrow, you’re going to take 20 grand from my competitor and talk about them. Profitability and accountability around dollars is really important. And affiliates, it’s pay upon conversion, it’s performance-based. And so a lot of brands have been turning to affiliate marketing. What he set up and everybody, if you’re a brand and you’re selling on Amazon, especially if you’re on the third-party side, you should check it out. It’s Archer Affiliates.

He’s partnered with publishers. It’s a 100% free platform for brands. He’s partnered with publishers, who then get the brand referral bonus from Amazon if you’re on the third-party side. So instead of you coming out and saying, hey, I need to give a publisher 25% referral fee. They’re grabbing 15 from Amazon, and they’re grabbing 10 from you. So it’s actually a discounted referral fee. Like, he just had a post on LinkedIn. He’s like, people just don’t understand why it’s free, and that’s why they’re not signing up. He’s like, it’s crazy. There’s no reason if you’re on a third party and you’re selling on Amazon, not to use this program, there’s just not.

Jeremy Weisz 13:44 

That’s why I wanted to talk about the business model, because it almost seems too good to be true, but it makes sense because so, the events are free for industry professionals. There’s no sales pitches. And then it’s cool, because people who maybe are sponsoring or want to get in front of these people are still vetted from the network, so they’re proven that they are, it’s not just they can write a big check. It’s these people are vetted from the other people in the industry to say, no, we, you know, put our stamp of approval. We’ve used these people, and they’re good. And so I can see that, if people can sponsor, it’s really those companies that want to get in front of these industry professionals.

Aaron Conant 14:28 

Yeah, that’s exactly. We put a cap on events every year and we just hold that inventory where it’s at. I think we could do 150 dinners. But why a lot of it is, I’ve got four kids at home, right? So I like my wife and kids. I like living in my house.

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